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Why Don't You Teach Poetry?

If you're not familiar with our school system, you might not know that many classes aren't made until the first week or even second week of school has gone by. This is more of an inner city phenomenon, I've been told, because of high transiency.

It also has to do with the districts, who always want to save money wherever they can and therefore schools have to wait until the district approves the classes Simply, a combination needs to be found to have an optimal number of students in a class so that new staff doesn't need to be hired. It also means that some teachers have to look for a new position. Splits are created, teachers hired or relocated.

For the teachers it means that we have students, not always our grade group and that we have to think of something to do with them for the duration of the waiting process until we officially get the names of our students. In some schools, they do testing, others leap in and begin teaching.

In the next three days, I will be teaching poetry, the levels of government (focussing on the municipality), and mathematical equations (greater, less than, etc.) to about fifty kids whom we're going to split up and share between two teachers.

If you'd been eavesdropping, you would have heard, "I'll do reading, why don't you teach poetry?" It's one thing to teach poetry as a process over a period of time. It's another thing to have to come up with something that will engage and inspire a room of grade six students for an entire morning on the second day of school.

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